‘back in the Netherlands after a good trip to Chicago. Not without incident, but productive overall.
The work with the new company went well: they have made great progress on their device, there is a clear path to regulatory approval and a clinical study, and the investment required to get to market seems clear. I’ve got a lot of confidence that they are on the right track.
My contribution seems equally clear: three major tasks to be done in the next quarter, a few minor ones. We renewed the consulting contract, had some excellent conversations with the Board, and had a bit of encouraging third-party interest.
Still, it was an intense and tiring week, and I was pretty well done in by the time I arrived back in Amsterdam on Saturday, 6 am. You could tell by the way I rode the train to Heerlen instead of Maastricht, if nothing else.
My computer suffered a breakdown on he last day, necessitating a night in Sony’s Backstage repair facility. The diagnosis was “Hard Disk Crash, unrecoverable, probably a manufacturing defect.” Lovely. I grabbed a half-terabyte removable drive and backed off the User partition before they reformatted (for which they charged $150), so I do have a current backup. Thus, my problems did not become the client’s problems: the pitch slides were delivered as promised on a backup machine.
Still, there was an element of plate spinning to all of it. I used to love watching these jugglers on TV when I was little: they could get dozens of plates going before some would start to fall. There is, similarly, always the temptation to think I can keep one more task in the air, gracefully. Most likely, there’s a limit.
So, I’ve reached out to establish my first subcontract, and I let go of a few tasks that I might have taken on myself in more ambitious times. I deliberately took time to decide what not to do to get the computer fixed, shipping from the Netherlands rather than asking the client to ship from the US. A backup system is assembled from spare components to keep me going for the next month. I’ve scheduled a planning day before I start the three new subprojects, and a day to meet with a marketing consultant. Any day now, the response from the IND should arrive; I’m looking at a bunch of potential new apartments.
It still doesn’t feel easy, but I am filling the days more productively than I have in a year or so.
On the downside, there’s still an acute sense of having a slim margin for error and no net. It’s a lot more work than expected to set up home and shop in a new country, despite downsizing a lot to keep things simple and costs down.
Reversing John Lennon’s song, I hum ‘beneath me, only sky’ as I bike hither and yon.
On balance, though, no complaints, except for not having a dozen more hours to each day and twice the cash flow every month. Every entrepreneur’s lament, I’m sure…
Lately, though, I have tended to just go with it. Expat’s tend to live off of the land anyway, making do with life as they find it and taking the opportunities brought by the unexpected. Same with jet lag; rather than fight it, I am simply accommodating it. Up early in the morning, take advantage of the couple of hours of quiet to think, read, or write, maybe prepare a recommendation or have a plan outlined ahead of the breakfast meeting. In the evenings, well, what’s so bad about going to bed at 8:30 or 9 if I’m tired?
I’ve arrived in Chicago; crowded plane over this morning but I got a solid eight hours work done and was feeling pretty bouyant on landing. I checked into the hotel and changed, then met the client group for a late lunch. They were local, one had moved around a bit, they were interested that I live in the Netherlands. “Why?” is always the first question; “When are you moving back?” is always the second.
Twice this past week, clients have suggested that our relationship eventually depends on my willingness to move. My next ‘o kin asked it when I was at the reunion. My corporate parent insisted on it before I left; even the Dutch were confused that I wouldn’t want to go back when the division was closed. (My landlady has told me to move within 6 months, but that’s different).